JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The U.S. Attorney General delivered a major speech in Washington today on protecting the rule of law. Merrick Garland thanked federal agents and lawyers who have endured partisan attacks, and he promised to defend the independence of the Justice Department. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hundreds of people filed into the Majestic Great Hall at the Justice Department this morning, so many that they ran out of room.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: If you do not already have a seat, we do have seating up and standing room up on the balcony.
JOHNSON: They gathered to hear Attorney General Merrick Garland defend their work and what he called an ironclad commitment to protect investigations from White House interference.
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MERRICK GARLAND: There is not one rule for friends and another for foes, one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans.
JOHNSON: Instead, Garland says, there is only one rule - to follow the facts and the law in a way that respects the Constitution. He says those ideas might seem abstract or small, but they're really the backbone of the Justice Department and the democracy.
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GARLAND: Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon. And our norms are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics.
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JOHNSON: Garland never mentioned former President Donald Trump, but Trump loomed in the background anyway. Trump has vowed to prosecute his political enemies, including people inside the Justice Department, if he wins the White House in November. And he will be armed with a powerful tool. This summer the Supreme Court gave Trump and future presidents substantial immunity from prosecution. But Garland says dedicated career workers at the DOJ have faced extraordinary challenges before.
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GARLAND: The work you do every day makes a difference. And the way you do that work makes clear that the public servants of the Department of Justice do not bend to politics and that they will not break under pressure.
JOHNSON: For the past three years, Garland's labored to put limits on White House contacts with the Justice Department and develop other rules to keep politics out of their cases.
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GARLAND: Protecting the rule of law is the obligation of every generation of public servants at the United States Department of Justice. In this time and place, that responsibility is yours, and it is mine. I know we are up to it.
JOHNSON: Garland says he will never stop defending the department he loves and the people who work there. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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